Utah Jazz: Ranking the last 10 first-round picks

As we continue our look back at past draft selections, the Utah Jazz do better than many with mid-round picks. So where do they all rank?

Very few teams have figured out how to consistently find quality players in the middle of the first round of the draft more than the Utah Jazz. For a small-market team, building through the draft is essential. For a team that never seems to truly bottom out and always right around playoff contention, this can be very tough to continuously do.

The Jazz have done just that. The team has not picked in the top five picks in the draft since 2014 and has found many a gem much later in the draft. Smart drafting is key to being a consistent contender in a market like Salt Lake City. This takes skill in the scouting department and a little bit of luck for the right player to fall to you.

In this look back we will rank the last 10 first-round picks by the Jazz and figure out how the right player fell and how things could have been different with a different choice. There were and are debates on if some of these selections were the right choices and we will discuss that as well.

These choices span two eras of Utah Jazz basketball, from the Gordon Hayward/Derrick Favors era to the present day the team has shown a penchant for rebuilding on the fly and staying competitive. It goes to show that not every pick has to be a home run for a team to stay consistent.